


Rest

by BlameMyMuses



Series: Beat and Melody [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Dave◊Aradia, F/M, Gen, Moirails, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 04:57:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1456318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlameMyMuses/pseuds/BlameMyMuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He came back a very long way in time to have a feelings jam.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rest

**Author's Note:**

> Happy 4/13, everyone. 
> 
> And thank you to Kindigo, for her help editing!

He's looking at her like she's a second hand, ticking out the beat just half a moment too slow. Like she's getting further and further away from him, falling behind.

 

“Dave?” she says. A question, and not. He pushes his shades up to the top of his head and just looks at her.

 

“Can we jam?” he asks, and of course how could she ever say no? He looks so lost, so unhappy.

 

When she takes his hand, she feels it. The melody around him is still his, but there's so much more of it than there used to be. There's years of growth in the melody, time stretched out over months and days, adding new notes onto the staff as he goes on. He's not _her_ Dave, but that's okay because (in the end) they're all her Dave. He's taller than her Dave, too. She has to tilt her chin up to smile at him.

 

“Are you all right?” she asks, after they've settled down onto a pile built up from expelled specibus items—excavation tools and CDs, bits of debris and shitty swords—and he just.

 

He freezes. Locked in place for an instant, gears not turning.

 

“No,” he says at last, and the note falls sharp, jagged in her ears. The melody is rough and unfinished-sounding around him, and needs careful hands to soothe it into something lovely again.

 

“You've come back a long way, Dave,” she says. She puts all her kindness, all her pity for him, into that simple statement of fact. He nods, and turns so that he can rest his face against her shoulder, sighing when she begins to thread her fingers through his hair in slow, gentle strokes, a bow's caress against a violin, and she can feel his tiredness like an ache in her own bones.

 

“Such a long way,” he agrees at last. “You told me I would, and fuck, here I am. As promised.”

 

He pulls away to look at her, eyes red-rimmed and sad, but he's trying to smile, and she feels lost and disoriented because _Dave doesn't smile like that_ and she's suddenly not sure who's meant to be comforting who, anymore.

 

All she can do is reach out, her fingertips like crow feathers against his cheek, and his expression like talons around her bloodpusher. She waits.

 

(She knows how to wait.)

 

He'll tell her eventually. He just has to find the right words. It's always about words with him.

 

But he is oddly silent. Maybe, in his present, he no longer wanders around muttering half-formed raps to himself, no longer meanders like an errant beat in the time signature, whispering ideas for his comics aloud.

 

He doesn't get flustered anymore by her staring. And that makes her frown, because he's staring back, and Dave is _bad_ at eye contact. But there he sits, drinking in the sight of her like the world's about to end.

 

She blinks.

 

“You're at the end, aren't you?” she asks.

 

One sharp, staccato nod. Eyes like whole notes, wide, and holding so much in themselves that they're quick to break into smaller, more manageable concepts: a half-note, a quarter-note, a rest, a grace-note.

 

“Are you okay?” she asks again, and he shrugs, one-shouldered, awkward, holding things back.

 

(Which is fine, because _time travel_ after all, and sometimes secrets need keeping.)

 

“We're about to go through the door. There wasn't time—” He chokes on the word. Rights himself mentally, and pushes on. “There's too much shit there at end, wasn't a good moment to come tell you. Everything happens so much, Aradia. All the things. They just keep happening... And there's so fucking much I wanted to say, but you can't—there isn't going to be time, after, and...” His hands are shaking in hers, and she clutches tighter, rubbing small circles against them with her thumbs.

 

“Shoosh, Dave. _Shoosh_. We have all the time you need, right now. If you want, we can take forever.”

 

They can't. Not really.

 

But they can spare a few moments, at least. He can take a moment to simply pause.

 

–<>–

 

Years in the future, but not many, Dave steps through a doorway, and doesn't look back.


End file.
